ℹ️ - Formula Legends Photo Mode

Developer: 3DClouds

Publisher: 3DClouds

Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox X|S

Initial Release: 2025

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Right from the first time seeing the stylish and somewhat retro key art, the stumpy caricatured cars, and the promise of a trip through all the eras of F1, I was pretty much already sold on Formula Legends. I really can't resist something like this, and even the comedically parodied driver names like Luis Hammerton and Byron Renna take me back to the classic racers I played as a child.

I was always going to try out the recent demo then and found a nice surprise waiting in the pause menu: Formula Legends has a photo mode. The visual style is obviously not the sort of thing that is going to rival F1 25 or Gran Turismo 7 when it comes to car photography, but that is really not the point, this one's all about the charm.

It's actually a very similar feel to that of Funselektor's Art of Rally – a game that also has a photo mode by the way – and comes with a comparable dose of nostalgia from its selection of classic racing car styles and recognisably familiar liveries.

As for the photo mode then, it's not a bad start. The camera has free movement over a modest range for relatively unhindered composition, despite it being quite twitchy to adjust. The bounding area is always centred around the player's car though with no way to hop around to see what the CPU racers are up to during the race, unless they're already within range that is.

I'd assume that the full version of the game will have a replay mode after each race, in which case, it is more than likely that this will end up being possible.

There is at least a rather huge zoom that seems to go on forever, bringing even distant cars and objects right up-close in the frame. Longer zooms also result in a more pronounced depth of field effect, nicely replicating real world lens behaviour, while the Camera Aperture setting has similar authenticity in the way it affects both the depth of field and exposure of the image.

Using either of these functions does immediately highlight a problem though because the Focus Distance option is currently not working. Stuck at a distance that is greater than the camera's range, this makes it impossible to have your own car in focus with any kind of shallow depth of field applied.

Obviously, with this being a demo build, I'd expect that to be a temporary problem and one that will be fixed come release day. For now though, finding CPU cars that just happen to be at the right distance for the fixed focus is the only workaround.

Elsewhere you'll find 16:9, 21:9, and old school 4:3 aspect ratios to choose from, the obligatory game logo, and some decent post-processing options. These include brightness for exposure compensation – something that you will need to balance the use of wide apertures – along with contrast and gamma to further manipulate the black to white balance.

Colour meanwhile, can be tweaked with saturation and white balance. Not only does that last one work nicely to add cooler modern tones or a warmer vintage feel to an image, but at one extreme it results in a red monotone style that I actually really like the look of. 3DClouds, if you're listening, don't take this out...

Vignette, chromatic aberration, and grain can also add something to complement the classic look, and a couple of colour filters are specifically tailored to suit the historical eras. Although they will overwrite all other editing choices you may have made so far, choosing the Vintage or Classic filter adds a subtle overlay on top of the image.

With one featuring lens and film defects, and the other faint CRT scan lines, these are a nice nod towards traditional recording and TV broadcasting characteristics. It feels like a nice fit with the game's own journey through the ages and the photo mode probably doesn't explore that idea enough in my opinion.

If there is one thing to add to the photo mode between now and lights out, it would probably be a greater emphasis on that sort of thing. Oh, and motion blur! You really can't have a racing photo mode that doesn't have motion blur!

Either way, Formula Legends looks set to be a lot of fun on-track when it rolls up to the start line later this year, while the game's stylised race cars and interpretations of famous circuits will no doubt make for some cool screenshots too. I know I'll be looking forward to putting in plenty more laps and getting a few snaps along the way.

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